Description

PROVENANCE:
Ehrich-Newhouse Galleries, New York, New York (by 1935);
Private collection, Kansas (purchased from the above on November
16, 1935, extant bill of sale);
Alan Barnes Fine Art, Dallas, Texas (purchased from the above in
2006).

NOTE:
There are two labels on the reverse of the frame: a hand-lettered
number "16" which appears to be an exhibition or collection label,
and a small paste-down with red border with the handwritten numbers
in ballpoint pen "4987." The latter resembles a museum transit
label.

This dashing portrait is one of four or possibly five versions
produced after a much-admired likeness of Bristol merchant Richard
Hart Davis, M.P. painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1815.

The specific half-length presentation Lawrence chose to portray
Richard Hart Davis was one he used to great effect during the 1810s
for men who were political celebrities and public figures. The
painter placed his subject against a dark background, highlighting
the face and showing only a mysterious flash of brilliance
somewhere in the darkness behind him. Usually the sitter wore, at
Lawrence's request, a costume featuring a passage of searing red so
that the portrait would contain an accent of irresistible visual
richness. Lawrence's sharp illumination of the face accentuated
clearcut lines, giving the impression, as it does here, of
intellectual strength and physical vigor. Lawrence's remarkable
portraits of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
(Wellington Museum, Apsley House, London) and the great
Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova (Pinacoteca di Casa
Canova, Museo Gipsoteca Canoviana di Possagno, Italy) possess the
same painterly conventions characterizing this portrait of Richard
Hart Davis.

Lawrence and Davis were both born in Bristol within three years of
each other-the painter in 1766 and Davis in 1769. Over the years
the two men became friends when their lives intersected through a
mutual love of art. Both were avid and discerning collectors, Davis
of outstanding Old Master paintings which became available as a
result of the Napoleonic invasions and for which he was willing to
pay a king's ransom to acquire, and Lawrence of Old Master
drawings. Diarist Joseph Farington reported that by 1813 (two years
before Lawrence painted his portrait) Davis has already spent
£100,000 on his art collection. Following financial reversals of
1818, Richard Hart Davis sold his collection en bloc to Sir
Philip Miles of Leigh Court just outside Bristol, which became the
nucleus of the celebrated Leigh Court Collection, dispersed in
1899.

Richard Hart Davis was a self-made man, the third son of Henry
Davis of Bristol and his second wife, Marianna, only daughter and
heiress of Major Hart-Davis of Grantham, County Lincolnshire. He
and his wife, Sarah Whittingham of Earlsmead, had four children who
lived to adulthood (two daughters, Clementina and Louisa; two sons,
Hart and Richard Vaughan). A Member of Parliament for the
notoriously corrupt borough of Colchester in 1807-12 and for
Bristol in 1812-31 (six consecutive parliaments), Richard Hart
Davis was a political associate of Lord Liverpool, the Prime
Minister who was instrumental in the foundation of the National
Gallery, London. By age 28 he had become a partner in Harford's
Bank in Bristol, and in 1803 joined the Society of Merchant
Venturers. In 1810, according to Lord Dunstanville, Davis was known
to have become a fabulously successful commercial speculator who
had managed to gain possession of all the Spanish wool in the
Kingdom, reportedly making £200,000. His coup in cornering the wool
market doubtless helped his ability to buy pictures, to commission
the 1815 portrait of himself and at least four other family members
from Thomas Lawrence (and quite probably studio versions of these
as well), and to purchase real estate. Farington remarked quite
pointedly that unlike most Bristol merchants, Richard Hart Davis
lived at large expense and had four residences: one in Bristol, one
near Bristol (Mortimer House in Clifton), and two in London (one in
Grosvenor Square). Certainly four children and four homes could
easily account for the multiple versions of this commanding
portrait by Lawrence which have appeared on the market during the
1920s and 30s, and again during the past two decades.

The painting which is currently held to be the primary version of
the Richard Hart Davis portrait by Lawrence was sold through
Sotheby's, London, The British Sale, 22 March 2000, lot 85. The
last owner of that painting was the distinguished publisher,
author, and descendant of the sitter, Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, who
died in 1999 (he hyphenated his name). According to Kenneth
Garlick's 1989 catalogue raisonné of Lawrence (cat. no. 391), the
portrait measured 30 x 25 inches and descended uninterrupted in the
Hart-Davis family to then-owner Sir Rupert. When the work was sold
at Sotheby's in 2000, however, the cataloguing deviated in places
from Garlick's documentation of it. The dimensions were given
instead as 29 ½ x 24 ½ in. and the provenance states that the work
descended in the family to the Rev. R. H. Hart Davis, until it was
sold at Christie's, 14th July 1922, lot 24 to Partridge for
£787.10. These discrepancies raise the question of whether versions
of this portrait, and/or their histories were conflated. (The 1922
sale also included portraits of Richard Hart Davis's son Hart Hart
Davis and his wife Charlotte. The Hart Hart Davis portrait in the
1922 sale is certainly a replica of the primary version which was
made for Eton College, where it has remained ever since. It was
commissioned by Richard Hart Davis in 1809 from Thomas Lawrence as
his son's Eton "Leaving Portrait.")

According to Garlick's 1989 catalogue (see mention in note to cat.
no. 391), there is a copy of Lawrence's Portrait of Richard Hart
Davis in the Mansion House, Bristol (now residence of Bristol's
Lord Mayor). A third version of the Portrait of Richard Hart
Davis is reproduced in the Witt photographic archive of The
Courtauld Institute of Art, London (fiche 2124, box 1418) as having
been in the collection of a Reverend W. H. Powell of Bristol in
1937. Powell loaned it to an exhibition of Lawrence's paintings in
Bristol in 1937. This portrait, measuring a slightly narrower 30 x
23 ½ inches, appears from photographs to be quite similar to the
present work. Whether the Powell version and the Mansion House
version could be one and the same painting is unknown at this
writing. A fourth version of the portrait measuring 30 x 25 inches
is reproduced in the Witt photo archives (fiche 2124, box 1418) as
having been on the art market with G. Arnot, London in 1929. The
sharpness of the photo makes a clear reading of the handling
difficult, though it seems somewhat softer and closer perhaps to
the version which sold at Sotheby's in 2000. A possible fifth
version measuring 30.1 x 25.2 inches-and the only one to date which
was sold as "Attributed to Thomas Lawrence" rather than with a full
attribution-fetched $8,087 at Neumeister on September 19, 1990, lot
578. The work was not illustrated. Additionally, an oil study for
the Portrait of Richard Hart Davis was part of lot 13 in the
Thomas Lawrence studio sale, 18th June 1831 (possibly sold at
Tajan, Paris, 18 December 1995, lot 43).

During the same year he painted Richard Hart Davis, Thomas Lawrence
embarked upon a royal commission from the Prince Regent that not
only made his career, but reaped for him tremendous and
unprecedented financial rewards: a series of portraits of the
allied leaders following their triumph over Napoleon for the
so-called Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle. To accomplish this
remarkable body of work, Lawrence was required to travel abroad
extensively--to Aachen, Vienna, and Rome. When he returned to
England in 1820, he was knighted and elected president of the Royal
Academy. The confidence with which he painted the Portrait of
Richard Hart Davis characterizes his achievements going
forward. Moreover, it contains that idiosyncratic blend of sensuous
design and romantic longing with the requisite formality of an
official image that was to become Lawrence's most personal
contribution to the history of portraiture.

Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000.

Condition Report*:

Re-lined canvas; a 9 x 5-inch area of restoration in the lower left corner possibly from significant paint-loss; area of in-painting on left side of figure's drape; heavy opaque varnish; craquelure throughout; in-painting on the top extreme edge.

*Heritage Auctions strives to provide as much information as possible but encourages in-person inspection by bidders.
Statements regarding the condition of objects are only for general guidance and should not be relied upon as complete statements of fact, and do not constitute a representation,
warranty or assumption of liability by Heritage. Please note that we do not de-frame lots estimated at $1,000 or
less and may not be able to provide additional details for lots valued under $500. All lots are sold "AS IS" under the Terms & Conditions of Auction.

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